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He was raised in a time before cell phones, the internet, mp3’s, and fire. He doesn’t have a facebook and doesn’t text. His cell phone has a rotary dial.

It was a simpler philosophy that ruled my father’s generation–a philosophy that had so much less gray area–so much less relativism. It’s this fact that so often leads me to seek his advice.

I’ve been having a bit of an existential crisis since I graduated. For some reason, employers just cannot find a way to give one tiny rat shit about how much Fitzgerald I’ve read. Working your ass off for four years to receive a certificate that carries the same worth as roughly six months of work experience at McDonald’s is pretty defeating.

But we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, don’t we? We lower our shoulders and keep going–at least that’s what dad tells me.

—

I walk into the kitchen. It’s roughly 6:30pm. My father is doing the dishes.

“Hey dad.”

“Hey, son,” my dad responds, sliding back the bottom rack of the dishwasher and setting them to wash. “What can I do for ya?”

“Dad, I’m having problems.”

My dad grimaces a little bit and begins to call for my mother.

“Dad, come on.”

He sighs a bit and turns to me. “All right. What’s the problem?”

“I think I’m in a rut,” I say. “I just feel kind of lost.” In spite of my melancholy, I have to almost physically force myself to not make a LOST joke here.

“Lost? In what way?” He asks.

In a mysterious island kind of way, I think to myself. “I mean, What am I doing? I just feel like I’m counting down the days until–”

“–Until you die?” My dad interjects.

“What?! No!”

“That’s what I do.”

“Really?!”

My dad shrugs.

“Well, have you ever felt like this? Like you don’t have any direction?” I ask.

“Son, when I was a young man, I owned a 1978 Camaro. Beautiful car. Electric blue with a big white racing stripe going up the hood. Well, one day, I was driving home from work in it, and as I pulled up to the intersection of Brown and 43rd, I looked to the car on my left, and in an old Lincoln, I saw your mother.

“She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. So, I revved my engine, tore off the line, and smoked her ass.”

“Wait, what?”

“Lincoln never had a chance.”

I stare at my dad for a few seconds. A clock can be heard ticking in the background. My dad just smiles wistfully and gazes into the distance, glassy-eyed.

“What does that have to do with a lack of direction?” I ask. My question seems to startle my dad a bit.

“Direction? Oh, oh yes. Well, when I was telling a friend about it later, describing your mom and the car she drove, he told me he knew who this ‘mystery girl’ was. I told him I thought she was pretty good lookin’ and he agreed to set us up.”

“So your friend gave you direction?”

“No, no. See, how could I have ever predicted that not only would I run into that beautiful woman at that intersection, but that my friend would know her, and that this random incident would lead me to my wife and kids? I had no idea. So when you start to feel stressed because you don’t know what’s going to happen five years from now, relax–because you’ll never really know. All you can do is make estimates. Just keep doing. You’ll be all right.”

I reach for a high five, but my dad just looks at my hand and walks away. “Unload the dishwasher,” he says.

I have a part time job as a tutor at a local high school, but I still find my bank account lacking every month. To remedy this, I got a second job.

I didn’t want just any job, though. I didn’t want to flip burgers or bag groceries–I wanted to use my unique skill set. I wanted to write.

I got a job writing the fortunes in fortune cookies.

—

The offices of Quin Tan’s Fortune Cookies is in a small office park in North Dallas. My job interview went very smoothly.

“Can you read English?” the salty Asian gentleman asked me.

“Why yes, it’s one of my f–”

“–Can you use a keyboard?”

“Yes, I can.”

“You have the job. Be here tomorrow at 8 am.”

He begins flipping through some documents on his desk, ignoring me completely. I stand up slowly and, with great care, hand him my resumé along with a twenty-three page writing sample; both he quietly slides off his desk and into an adjacent waste basket. I clear my throat, consider getting my resumé and writing sample out of the trash, then turn away and leave, afraid that digging in another man’s garbage would be some big cultural insult to the interviewer–he was Asian, remember, and for whatever reason, I have a penchant for offending people from the Orient.

On my first day, I pull into the staff parking lot and walk to the building.

“Hello, building!” I yell, waving with child-like excitement. The building didn’t say anything back. It was busy not collapsing.

From the lobby, I’m directed to a small cubicle in a bull-pen of writers. The sound of thousands of keys being pressed sounds like rain on rooftops.

“Here is your station,” the attendant tells me. “When you write ten or fifteen fortunes, e-mail them to the editing department. We’ll let you know if there are any problems.”

Below are my first submissions.

Can you handle a gun? If not, try to learn–fast.

You are well-liked, but people are starting to think you’re gay. Maybe stop smiling so much.

You should probably start stocking up on canned goods and bottled water.

Be wary of foreigners. They love to make fun of you behind the safety of their native tongue.

You should probably start saying goodbye to mom.

Life will look up for you when you discover the wonders of putting melted cheese on practically every meal.

Wine is fine, and liquor is quicker, but heroin is the quickest.

Cocaine is cheap and makes you feel like Al Pacino.

Hookers are cheap and make you feel like a NBA superstar.

You will finish the final season of LOST. SPOILER: It ends with a shot of the writers in a poorly-lit room masturbating to someone reading their work back to them.

What do you know about heart failure?

I click “send” on the e-mail and get started on my next batch of fortunes. Before I finish, however, a small scream is heard from the editing department’s small office at the north east end of the bull pen.

“Mr. Irion!” Beatrice Jackson, head of editing, calls as she approaches my desk. She’s not very cute. That’s why it’s hard for me to tolerate all her yelling.

“Yes ma’am?” I ask.

“You can’t advise people to used narcotics. You can’t tell people that their mothers are dying. That LOST fortune is about 300 characters too long, and what kind of fortune is ‘Want a sandwich? Buy a sandwich’?”

Seat belts don’t protect you from driving into a light pole, so don’t even bother with ’em.

I once again click “send” and wait for my Pulitzer. I’m really loving this job. I turn to the guy behind me, striking up a loose, light-hearted conversation. A few moments later, I hear the voice of Beatrice in the distance.

“NO!” she screams. “No, no, no!” All of a sudden, she’s back at my desk. It’s kind of like how Davy Jones magically teleports onto the Black Pearl to mess with Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.

“Have you ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean?” I ask Beatrice.

“What? No–yes. That doesn’t matter. Kyle, you can’t write like this. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You’re fired.

“What?! I gave you gold!”

“You gave me trash.”

“Fine, but I have one more fortune for you, lady.” I type one more fortune on my computer and send it to editing. “I’m out.”

I gather my things, put on my coat and walk out. I make a brief stop in the break room to get my lunch, then I pass through the building’s exit and go home.

Beatrice returns to the editing station and is greeted by my final fortune:

I poured an entire jar of mayonnaise out in the break room refrigerator.

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For whatever reason, God hates us. God hates Texas. He throws wave after wave of unpredictable weather our way, leaving it up to us to tough it out as our allergies and seasonal sicknesses run rampant, to keep our own chins above the sea of mucus that we all must ride for the winter/spring/summer/you know what really all the seasons.

I’ve been struck by the big, heavy hand of the congestion monster. I went to the doctor.

—

“I don’t feel so good,” I tell the woman on the phone. The woman is a receptionist at my doctor’s office.

“All right…” she says. “Who is this?”

“This is Kyle. When can we meet?” Every time I make an appointment, I like to use the question “When can we meet?” It’s much more intimate, and so unabashedly audacious that it intimidates the person on the other line into immediately meeting my needs. They’re afraid. They’re afraid of when we can meet.

“Doctor Earnhart wants to–” She’s interrupted by a voice in the background. It’s a man’s voice. He’s asking who she’s talking to. I hear him reference “That guy who’s always asking when he can meet with people.”

“Hello?” I say into the receiver.

“Yes. Mr. Irion, Dr. Earnhart is only available at his Ovilla Road office now. Would you like me to make you an appointment at that office?”

“Are you going to be there?” I ask, crossing my legs and blushing into the phone. My coyness is all over the phone.

“Um, no. I don’t work there. I work at the Main St. office–here–here at the office you called just now.”

“You’re such a sassy little ferret,” I say. I’m horrible at pet names as well as come-ons, as displayed with this next remark: “Why don’t I come down there and let you tape me to someone’s head?”

I hear the nurse sigh. “Dr. Earnhart will see you at nine thirty tomorrow morning at 874 Ovilla Road. Can you make that?”

The next day is blanketed in whiteness as flurries of snow flakes fall. I walk out of my door, trot to my car, and drive to the veterinarian’s office.

I reach the Ovilla office and pull into the parking lot. I’m surprised to see stables in the back of the new office. I approach the entrance and pull back a thin, battered door to see a waiting room that is filled with a staggeringly high population of blind people–all holding tight to their seeing-eye dogs and their seeing-eye cats and their seeing-eye rabbits in boxes. There’s a woman in the corner cooing to her seeing-eye lizard, which is staring blankly at her from a plastic container. She has wispy gray hair and her skin seems to hang from her frame as if it were made for a much larger woman. I sit next to her.

“Where’s your animal, young man?” she asks me.

“My animal? I didn’t bring an animal. I’m not blind,” I say.

“Obviously not–you see me.” She smiles to reveal only a handful of decaying yellow teeth that run along her gums like old gravestones. I jerk to the back of my chair as a pang of fear erupts in my gut.

“How do you know I’m looking at you?” I ask. I reach my hand out and wave it in front of her glassy, cataractous eyes.

“Oh young man, you’re so silly. These eyes may not be brand new, but they still serve me well enough to see you.”

“To be real honest with you, lady, I think you’re full of shit, but since you kind of look like a scarier, dead version of my grandma, I forgive you for lying to me without you even asking.” I stand up and go to sign in with the receptionist.

A few minutes later, I’m called into the back by a burly, tomato-shaped man I’ve never seen before. His eyes point in different directions and his mustache has the frantic appearance of steel wool. “Hey-lo young man. Earnhart told me I was supposed to see you today. Come on back!”

I follow him down a rank and poorly-lit corridor. The floors are of linoleum and as I step across it I feel a thin layer of grit scraping my feet. We enter a small examination room with a large metal table at its center. More linoleum counters. There’s a small scale in the corner of the room. He lifts it and places it on the table.

“Hop up,” he says.

“No?” I say.

“Oh, come now,” he says, stepping forward and placing both hands on the table.

“Yea…Still no. Yea, I’m not getting on this ta–”

He reaches out and grabs me by the scruff of my neck. I hate being treated like an animal, and I start to tell him so, but ruin any case I have when I inadvertently hiss and claw at him.

He weighs me.

“Well, you’ve maxed out the scale!” He laughs a phlegmy, wheezing laugh. “Looks like I’m just going to have to guess your weight.” He writes down 8 lbs. and pulls me down off the scale, but doesn’t let me get down from the table. “It’s time to take your temperature,” he says.

I open my mouth.

“No sir, this ain’t that kind of temperature. Now drop ’em.”

—

All is darkness

—

All is cold.

—

He puts a thermometer in my butt hole.

—

I walk out into the cold February air feeling hollow–feeling as though I’ve been gutted of something precious and essential. I turn my face to the sky, then pop two or three of the heart-worm pills the doctor gave me.

The End.

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“Lieutenant Taglund! Turn thrusters to full gitty-up!” I scream from my ivory throne (Don’t read anything into this. It isn’t racist. Once or twice a day, I have either a black person or a really tan white guy sit in it so everybody knows my ivory throne is racially cool.).

Taglund, a man of average height and average looks and less-than-average importance in this story turns a small knob then presses a handle to the peak of its capacity. There’s a slight push as the craft picks up an incredible amount of speed–everyone’s heads tilting back just slightly, as if we were all talking to someone that was standing way too close to us.

“Sergeant Taglund! Return us to cruising speed.”

Taglund looks back at me, then back to the control panel. There he presses a few buttons and lowers the handle to the middle of its range.

“I thought I was a lieutenant,” Taglund says once we’ve slowed down.

“So did I, private.”

“Wait, what? How did I become a private?”

“That’s enough outta you, wash boy! Get back to the kitchen!” I grab Taglund by the shirt and lean so close we’re almost nose to nose. “And you best make-uh my floors clean. You got that, Mr. President?”

“Wait, so am I the President now? Am I the President of the Ship? What is that?” I brusquely push Taglund away.

“President of the Ship is the same thing as lieutenant. Get back to your post.”

As captain of the U.S.S. Tickle Me, Mister, I have to constantly maintain a clear hierarchy of power. If I don’t, I could lose my crew’s respect or fear or, even worse, both. The U.S.S. Tickle Me, Mister, has been journeying through the Narculon galaxy for three years now. We’re a young crew. Young, but wise–and talented. Taglund can play the harp. I can jump on a pogo stick for five minutes straight, and my second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Editor can find a way to repulse almost any female he meets. [Editor’s Note: You’ve made me hate the wonders of space.]

We cross through one of the universe’s most treacherous stretches of terrain, practically clawing our way through the Xanthalon asteroid-belt. When we reach the other side, we are presented with brilliance.

It's like a box of crayons blew its nose...and then let us all look at it.

Our intel has reported that Earth’s most distant outpost, outpost 451, which is located on one of the moon’s of planet TG41, has in recent months been the victim of countless raids by the inhabitants of TG41. We came to lend diplomatic, and if necessary, political aid.

“Yes,” I say, sitting down in my throne. “Send away.” There’s a few seconds of silence, the only sounds in the cabin being the faint murmurs of conversation and the various clicks and beeps of the ship itself. “Have they accepted it yet?” I ask.

“No sir. They haven’t accepted our request yet.”

“That’s odd. Are you sure you sent it?”

“Yes sir. I’m sure.” Shakura stares at his screen for a few moments. “What should I do now?”

“Try poking them.”

“Poking them?”

“Yes, poke them.”

“Yes sir.” Shakura clicks a few buttons on his console.

More silence.

“Have they accepted it yet?” I ask, growing increasingly frustrated.

“Um, it seems they haven’t, Captain Irion.” Shakura says. I look to Editor.

“You’re right. I didn’t even think of that! Damn it!” I slam my fist down on my throne’s arm rest. Not realizing that that’s also where most of the ship’s weapons triggers are, I accidentally launch two or three dozen rockets at outpost 451. The cabin explodes into horrified gasps and panicked wailing. “What?!” I scream, looking down at my throne. “Why would they put the triggers there?! THEY KNOW THAT’S WHERE I SLAM MY FIST!” I sit for a moment, thinking over all my options. “Editor, fire someone.”

“What?”

“Fire someone. Somebody’s got to take the fall. Just do it.”

Shakura, his eyes still on the communications screen, calls to me. “Captain! It seems they’ve responded to our request.”

“Snickerdoodles,” I sigh. Exasperated, I rest my head against the back of my throne and, forgetting that there’s a button back there too, inadvertently activate Shakura’s ejector seat, sending him into the inky vacuum of space. More screams. There’s something new in this chaos, however–anger. “Well that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” I say to myself as I look from the back of my throne to Shakura’s now vacant console. “Why is there an ejection seat in a space ship?”

Several of the crew members now wear expressions of hard contempt. They’ve risen from their control panels and have begun to approach my sweet, Casper-white throne. A cold sweat breaks out on my back and along my hairline–my armpit hairline. My pits are drenched.

“Everyone needs to calm down,” I say. “There’s clearly a flaw in my throne’s design that is compl–” I try to get out of my seat, but trip, sprawling to the floor. “–Completely not my fault.” I scramble to my feet.

“You designed the throne!” A voice from amongst screams.

“Maybe I did, but how can you blame a man for designing something?”

“What?” Editor asks, clearly puzzled.

I shoo him away. “Listen,” I say, raising my hands to the level of my chest, as if to gesture everyone to a halt. “We can still work this out, okay? There’s no reason we can’t be civil. It was an accident, pure and simple. How ’bout we just throw the ol’ engines into overdrive, jump through a worm hole into another galaxy and I’ll buy everyone pizza. How does that sound?” Exultant cheers and laughter meet this, and I once again hear the familiar sound of free pizza washing innocent blood from my hands. “Good, then let’s move on to the matter at hand. Who wants beef?”

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“Editor!” I yell, throwing my coat onto the secretary’s desk. “Editor, I need you!” I begin to spin around, my arms outstretched. “Editor!” I scream again. “I’m a hurricane of anger and I need you to come be my low pr–” Just at that moment, the door at the rear of the small office flies open. Editor races through it.

“He needs me to be his low pressure system,” Editor says under his breath. He brings his arms in tightly across his chest and begins to spin in the opposite direction as me. “Here I come! I’m a low pressure system of calm. Here we go.” We start to collide, my fists pounding Editor at shoulder-level. Editor cringes slightly at the first, heavy blows, but as I slow down, we break into a warm, subdued embrace.

“I’m a cool autumnal breeze,” I whisper in Editor’s ear.

“I’m a leaf breaking from my mother tree and returning to the Earth,” he whispers back in mine.

We go to Editor’s office, and I sit in the padded chair in front of his desk. “Editor,” I say, “I need to talk to Stephen King and I need to do it now.”

Editor seems none surprised. He simply opens his small, leather-bound datebook and points to a date close to the front cover. “Here. King is doing some press for his new book, Under the Dome. I could probably get you in later today if you’re ready.”

“Ready?! I was born!”

Editor sits quietly. The room is completely silent. “You were born what?”

“I was born! Let’s do the interview.”

“I don’t think you finished the expression, but I just don’t think you care anymore,” Editor sighs. He then closes the datebook and slides it next to a pile of papers on his desk. “I know you and Stephen have a fairly close relationship,” he says, “but I feel like you aren’t really as ready as you may think you are, and that maybe you and I should go over some questions for you to ask Stephen in your interview.”

Editor furrows his brow and tilts his head slightly. “Are you all right?”

“Am I all right?! Why do you ask?”

“You’re talking weird. And for the last three or four minutes you’ve been just pointing at different things in my office with no real rhyme or reason.”

“I’m feeling good. I just had a mix up this morning.”

“Mix up?”

“I tried to get loaded on a bottle of Dayquil thinking it was Nyquil, realized my mistake, then drank the Nyquil too. When’re we getting started?” I reach out and throw Editor’s pencil cup against the wall, scream my mother’s name, and leave the room.

—

By the time I reach Stephen’s home, I’m bubbling over with excitement. When I say bubbling over I mean I threw up a little bit and hid it under the cabbie’s seat.

“I love Stephen King!” I tell the cabbie.

“What smells like Ted Danson’s balls back there?” he asks me.

“Ted Danson’s balls,” I say, calmly pointing to Ted Danson’s exposed scrotum. Ted Danson and I were sharing a cab. He raises his hand to the cabbie sheepishly. He then tucks his balls back into his pants and quietly apologizes to both of us.

I give the fare to the cabbie and step out to King’s estate. It is exactly as I remember it from the last time I was here. I breathe in the crisp Maine air. “Honey, I’m home!” I yell, pushing the gate open. I skip all the way to the front door.

When I press the button on the right side of the door frame, I’m greeted by the refreshing, rustic sound of an old-time door bell. “How delightful.” I say. The door opens. In it stands Stephen King.

“Stephen!” I say opening my arms for a hug. He reaches out and slaps me flatly across the face. My head jerks back from the force of the blow. Lightly touching my cheek, I look up at Stephen with tears in my eyes.

“Hey there, boy!” Stephen exclaims, taking a step forward and hugging me tight. His mixture of violence and affection fills me with both anger, confusion, and deep, devoted love. He’s just eccentric, I think. He’s just an artist.

He leads me down the entry corridor and into his living room, where two chairs sit facing one another. One is large, pecan-colored, and leather. Its arms are heavily padded and it has a very nice worn-in look. The other is a fairly standard recliner with a cloth, paisley covering. Before I’m able to sit down in the cloth chair, Stephen reaches out and grabs my arm.

“No, no, no. Allow me.” He lights a match and sets the chair ablaze. “Please,” he says, gesturing toward the burning chair while settling into its leather counterpart, “Please sit. Sit in the hot seat!” He laughs wildly, the pitch ascending to a tittering shrillness.

“Stephen, I’m interviewing you.Shouldn’t you be in the hot seat?” I ask, smiling nervously, gripping my pad with white-knuckle desperation.

“I suppose you’re right,” Stephen says, epiphany dawning in his eyes. He leaps onto the chair and is almost immediately on fire.

“Oh God.” I say. Quickly, I run to a pitcher full of water. Stephen is fidgeting and flailing about like a man in the midst of a seizure.

“YOU SEE?!” he yells. “YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DARE AMERICA’S MASTER OF HORROR TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE?!”

“Oh yea,” I say, leaning slightly to the left to get a different vantage point. “Oh…Hey, do you want me to put you out?”

“NO! NO! THAT’S WHAT MY BATS ARE FOR. BATS!” Stephen calls out. From the chimney, several hundred bats flood the room. They douse Stephen King in guano. When the bats leave, America’s most prolific lord of ghouls and bumps-in-the-night sits, one leg crossed over the other, hands clasped and resting on one knee, his head tilted slightly. His face is held in a position of aloof coolness and his entire body–head to toe–is covered in bat shit. “So what’s your first question?” he asks.

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Hello and welcome to romance. Welcome to love. It’s almost Valentine’s Day and most likely, if you don’t already have a special someone to buy things for or eat food with, you’re desperately clamoring for one–searching through your phone’s address book, trying to find a contact that would be easy enough to go out with you at a moment’s notice, but not so easy that, after you make reservations with your restaurant, you’d have to make reservations with your doctor.

In the spirit of love and all that, I decided to write my own self-help book on relationships. Here’s the pitch for the cover:

I thought I would take out a few notable passages in order to not only help you with your relationship woes, but to also plug the shit out of my book.

Kyle,

So the other day me and my boyfriend were on the couch and we were watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It was a really emotional episode, so we were both starting to get a case of the sniffles. It was the first time I’d ever seen my boyfriend cry. He told me that I was the only person he felt safe crying in front of.

Here’s my question: Is my boyfriend gay?

Thanks for your help,

Anna

—

Anna,

You’re a horrible person. Be single forever.

Happy to help,

Kyle.

—

Boom. Problem solved. See? Sometimes, certain people need to be single forever so as to not sully our gene pool. This woman is painfully intolerant. Do you want your child to go to school with the child of someone as ethically short-sighted as this? No. This woman is unfit for breeding. Once she comes to grips with this, she’ll never have to worry about dating again. You could be one of those people that don’t have to worry anymore! You! Right there! So take refuge in the fact that your solitude and your heart-breaking loneliness are harbingers of great joy and progress to the rest of us. Don’t try to call us about it, though. We’re all busy having sex.

—

This book isn’t just for women, though. There are a few chapters directed toward men.

Men are simple creatures. Women, you’ll find that all it takes to get into a man’s heart is to care for him, stand by him–love him. Men love love and most men love loving women. Some men love loving other men. There are also some men who love God’s more romantic animals–like horses, goats, and dogs in people-clothes.

No matter what men love, though, understanding that love is a constant source of confusion. You want to know why your boyfriend forgot your anniversary? Because he has spent the previous 364 days trying to figure out a mathematical quantity for how much he loves you (it’s in the bazillions of gallounces).

In light of this confusion, I’ve created a number of sports analogues to help your man make sense of the love he has for you.

When to know how to ask a girl out. When to know when to give a girl some space. All of these are tricky, tricky issues. I’m here for you, though.

When trying to figure when it’s right to move in or back off of a girl, imagine Peyton Manning.

Imagine him.

All you need is poise. Don’t rush the throw. I know you’re going to feel the defense moving in on you, rushers crowding in. You want to get the ball out of your hands–you feel like you need to make a play–but beware, brave warrior. If you let go of the ball too fast, you could throw an interception or an incompletion. If you wait too long, afraid to make a move, you could get sacked.

So, don’t throw it too fast or too slow. Read the defense, take your time, but don’t be afraid to act when the time comes–like when you both bump into each other in line for beer or when she glances at you after you sneeze.

When you’re in a relationship, resist all temptation to tell your partner he/she/it is “the one.” Doing this before you’re actually married (or absolutely positive you’re going to get married) is like predicting a no-hitter at the bottom of the fifth. It’s bad luck, it’s not necessary, and it just makes it so when/if the relationship/pitcher fails, everybody’s a hell of a lot madder at you.

Too much celebration after sex, much like after a touch down, is at times off-putting and, in the least, ill-advised. Get past the goal line, hand the ball to the ref, and walk back to the side-line like scoring touchdowns (and hot chicks) is just another day in the office for you.

Oh, and one more thing: it’s always safe to steal second. Just go ahead and do it.

With that, I bring my brief tutorial on love to an end–any more, and I’ve have to ask you to pay me. I hope your Valentine’s Day, whether spent in romance or with friends or in bitter self-loathing, is fun, safe, and fortuitous.